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Where my Old writing lives!

Drug Dealers & Inspiration

It’s raining in California. This is such a rare occurrence -especially now- that it makes one feel like Christmas has come early. It’s so rare that one feels like they need to document the moment. Take some pictures or at least highlight it in one’s mind. This is how it appears to me…

I’m watching everything I love sleep. A couple of dogs and my wife and I’m reminded about why I do anything at all these days. Ambition is somewhat innate, I think, but it always has a purpose…a fuel. My fuel is sleeping in front of me.

These days, I wake up at 5am at the very latest and I start to work on the website I’m currently building. You can find its homepage here. I work on the site for at least 2-2.5hrs and then I shower and get ready for my hour commute to work. During that commute, I listen to podcasts and sometimes the radio and try to gather my thoughts for the day.

While at work, I do everything I can to excel at my job…to make sure the powers that be are happy with what I’m doing and to make sure I bring more “tech” money into the company. Every and any spare minute I have at work, I go back and tweak my website. It’s a frenetic pace and it’s one that I think most people would burn out on.

So, why do I do it? Well, I realized the other day that I’m after “life changing” money. Now, you might think — why would one be after “life changing” money? Isn’t enough money, enough money? We live in a world of constant “more, more” when is enough, enough? True. But, it all depends on one’s circumstances. I have a wife who pulled herself up and out of what I would call redneck beginnings. She educated herself and landed what most would consider a white collar job, but that white collar job cost nearly half a million dollars in student loans. I’m not exaggerating that. I’m not blowing it up for effect. That’s the amount. Half a million dollars. Now, we make good money, but with normal debt and living expenses and her mother that we’re currently taking care of, at least in a supportive way, half a million dollars is “Holy shit, I have to kill myself for my own life insurance if I ever plan to pay off that kind of debt…” type of money.

Basically, it’s nearly impossible.

So, I get up early. Every.single.day. And I work on this website, which I do think I can grow into a media company, if it garners the right amount of traffic, which leads me to drug dealers…

When it comes to drug dealers and websites and media companies, I can’t help, but think of Freakonomics. Freakonomics talked about drug dealers and compared them to actors. They talked about how when it comes to drug dealers and actors, well, only the top 1% make any money. So, Tom Cruise and El Chapo. That’s it. Everyone else is LEAD TO BELIEVE THEY WILL MAKE MONEY. They won’t. The top 1% will and the rest are lead into a delusion.

I often wonder if it’s the same with the internet.

Sure, the internet is vast. So, if you know how to corral the herds, theoretically, you should be able to make a bushel, but is it a fallacy? Are there other “accidents” at play. For example, Facebook’s capricious algorithm. If that’s the main source of your traffic, then, say goodbye if the breeze passing over Mark Zuckerberg happens to change direction.

I don’t know if what I’m trying to accomplish will come to pass. All I know is that I now have the knowledge base to apply to a project like this and that I’ve always had the tenacity. The rest is like asking if life is fair, which we all know the answer to – unfortunately.

Anyway, as always, I welcome your thoughts. Hope is a good thing, but so is realism…which way do you tend to lean?